Somewhere to Be
by karabair
Summary: As soon as Scott opened his eyes, he knew he was dead. Astonishing Xmen, post issue 15.


Title: Somewhere to Be  
Disclaimer: Marvel owns it all!Comic: _Astonishing X-men_  
Spoilers: (if applicable) Major spoilers through issue 15.  
Pairing/Characters: Scott + ensemble, etc.  
Rating: PG-13  
Wordcount: 2,381  
Summary: Scott Summers knows he has somewhere to be. He just needs to stop for a few conversations on the way.  
Author's Notes: Post-AXM 15

The instant Scott opened his eyes, he knew that he was dead.

Nothing was happening. His lay on his back, eyes naked against the air, and nothing was happening. He had to be dead.

Then he propped up on his hands, turned his head to one side, and was sure of it.

"I was wondering when you'd show up." Jean leaned on one elbow, looking down at him, smiling like a redheaded sphinx.

"Have you been waiting? Is this it?" Scott sat slowly up, touching his feet to the floor. It was the same room, the way it had been when it was theirs -- Jean's nature photographs and graduation pictures in the place of Emma's modern art -- only now without the staining wash of red. He put a hand in front of his eyes, and felt a surge, but just as quickly, it subsided. The blasts weren't gone; only contained. Everything worked, at last, the way he had always known it should. Looking at Jean, he said, "Am I done?"

"Are you asking if you're in heaven?"

He looked down at her bare shoulder, and saw that the tinge of pink under her skin was still there, had always been a part of her. The hair that fell over her shoulders wasn't really red, but he didn't know what else to call it. People talked about colors in terms of some other thing that they looked like; Scott had lost the vocabulary. He called back a memory of his father, pointing from the cockpit of their plane at the distant glow of prairie fire. From now on, Scott would remember -- flame was the color of Jean.

"I don't believe in heaven," he answered.

"Don't you?" She reached out to touch his cheek, leaning closer to look in his eyes. He hadn't seen his own eyes for years, not even in a dream. He wondered what they looked like, whether the corners were pinched with worry, drawn into lines by age.

"Maybe I do," and as he said it, a warmth flowed over him and he started to understand that it was true, that he was dead and it was the end and he was here at last with the woman he never should have let himself think he could be out of love with.

"Tell me," said his dead wife. "Why does a man's idea of heaven always have to do with sex?"

Scott jerked back, raising his hands. He felt the stammer in his voice. "I didn't say anything about –"

"Well, I'm not big on metaphor." Her eyes traveled around the room. "I'm certainly not a licensed therapist – like some people we both know – but I can't help noticing we're in a room with a bed – our bed – and that I'm wearing the slip I bought for our wedding night."

Silk in a light rose shade, setting off the tints in her skin. "I was going to notice that any minute." It was the only thing in the room that looked exactly the color he remembered, the color of his mother's roses, Scott lying on the ground, looking up at a trellis in a back yard in Omaha. "Actually I assumed that one was white."

"I got it in a color that I knew you could see. And really, Mr. Summers. I gave up the right to white a long time before we were married. As you well know." She raised an eyebrow. "Not that a lack of innocence bothers certain people with a fondness for the color – "

The reality hit him, how he'd gotten here. "God, Jean. Everything that's happened –" He looked down at his hands. "The things that came between us – things _I_ did. It's not like you'd even want –" He stopped, because Jean's palm had spread over his wrist. Her fingers twisted down between his. Pressure crunched the bones in his hand, and then she leaned in and their mouths pressed together in a hard, hungry kiss. She tasted like everything and nothing; it lasted forever, it ended in a moment.

"It's too bad you can't stay," said Jean.

"I can't?" he echoed weakly. Of course he couldn't. "Because I haven't earned this. I don't deserve it."

"Because," Jean answered, pecking him quickly on the chin. "You aren't dead."

"Oh. I guess I was afraid of that. And you're not you?"

"Not exactly. But I'm not her, either. I'm not her. And I'm not it." Not Emma. Not Phoenix. Just the little piece of herself that Jean had left in his mind all those years ago, the piece he thought he had lost forever.

"I don't want to go back out there. I don't even know if they want me." Emma didn't want him. That was clear enough. If even Emma didn't want him anymore, it was hard to imagine who would.

"I can't answer that," said Jean. "But it doesn't matter if they want you, because they need you."

"Why does that sound like the story of my life?"

"Because it's the one you keep telling yourself," she answered. "Things happen to all of us, they happen like they're going to happen. But we write our own stories, or someone else writes them for us."

"I don't even know what that means."

"No," she answered. "But I think you know who does."

"I'm afraid maybe I do."

She put a hand on each shoulder and looked him in the eyes. "Well, then, Cyclops. What are you waiting for?"

"I don't know what to do."

"Easiest thing in the world." She leaned toward him until their foreheads touched. "Just close your eyes."

When Scott opened his eyes again, he was looking at a familiar oak-paneled library, with its well-worn array of books. They had all been destroyed, of course, two or three attacks-on-the-school ago. But this was what the place always looked like in his mind.

"Scott." That single syllable echoed in the room -- a toneless acknowledgement, not quite welcome or reprimand, but the smallest hint of both. He turned slowly to see Charles Xavier, seated in his chair behind the mahogany desk. The old man wore a heavy knit sweater. The room was always too cold. "I've been waiting for you, Scott. I didn't want to interrupt –"

"Now I know I'm not in heaven," Scott broke in, flatly.

"I presume that you mean because I am most assuredly not dead."

"Presume what you want." Scott crashed down in one of the old leather chairs, throwing a knee over one arm. He would never have imagined doing such a thing as a teenager; hell, Bobby or Warren wouldn't even have imagined. Scott would probably have had an aneurysm at the thought. Now, he considered putting a foot up on the coffee table, but decided he had made his point.

"Honestly, Scott. There is no reason to take your aggression out on perfectly innocent furniture."

"Where should I be taking it out?" Even as he spoke, Scott heard the echo of the sulky adolescent contrariness he had rarely had the nerve to voice out loud.

"I suppose this is about what Ms. Frost said to you."

"Among other things," said Scott, in a voice that hinted, _Many other things._

"In fairness, Scott. You are certainly entitled to hate me because I'm an elitist Machiavellian bastard who will do anything to gain a strategic advantage. Or, you may choose to hate me because I took a damaged young boy and elevated him beyond his abilities, simply out of – what was it she said? -- pity. However, I should think it is rather problematic to hold both views at once."

"Is it? How about this? You used all of us. The way you used Danger, that was just a symptom. We were all the same. Guinea pigs for your little experiment. And a pretty convenient batch. Warren's family had money, Hank was a strongman and a genius – two for the price of one. Bobby was young enough to swallow any line you fed him, and as for Jean –" He could picture her now that first day, hair flowing free, breasts and legs shown off to eye-popping advantage by those outfits she claimed to like. "Jean didn't look bad on the recruitment poster, did she?" He swung a leg out and kicked the coffee table for emphasis. If the thing had really existed, he was sure he would have left a scratch.

"Fascinating." Xavier rubbed his chin as though Scott had just proposed a unique solution to a complex math problem.  
"And how do you suppose you fit into this?"

"For everything to work the way you wanted, we had to believe we were a family. So, who better to put in charge than someone who didn't have anything of his own?" Scott could hear his own voice rising, gathering speed as he spoke. "Someone who would need this place so much he would come back here – again and again and again – someone easy for you to control."

"Scott!" Xavier barked, his head still down. "Enough!"

"I'm not finished!"

"I'm aware of that. However –" He raised his eyes and Scott realized with a start that he was smiling. "Wherever do you get the impression that I find you easy to control?"

Scott took his foot off the table. "What?"

"If I had to estimate, I'd say you've given me more headaches than any other five mutants put together. You're humorless, you're self-righteous, and you're stubborn. You let too much pressure build up, until everything gets to be too much. And then you run away."

"I – I –" He sat carefully in the chair, hands clasped bfore him. Looking down, he said, "I was a runaway when you found me. You've always known that. You studied me, you knew everything about me. For God's sake, you read my mind. You knew everything that was wrong with me, and you still chose me. Why?"

"Why?" Xavier repeated. He rolled the chair from behind his desk and came out to face Scott. "Well now," he said gravely. "I'm afraid you're on the verge of discovering my darkest secret. The thing I've spent my entire life hoping and praying that no one would find out. Especially you."

Scott rolled his head back to look at the ceiling. The lights of the chandelier gleamed dazzling white, and he let his eyes slip out of focus. "It's not what Emma said, is it? It's worse."

"Much worse, I'm afraid. And once you've heard it, I won't be able to unsay it."

For the first time in his life, Scott Summers looked Charles Xavier straight in the eye. "Hit me with your best shot. Why me?"

"Because," Xavier answered. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Scott waited. In the intervening silence, he heard the heavy tick of a grandfather clock that he knew for a fact had been smashed to bits years ago. The Professor continued to look at him, but he made no move to speak further. Finally, Scott bit off his frustration. "Because?"

"Because it seemed like a good idea. You seemed eager enough to do it, and as good a choice as any. Better than most. As you recall, our early recruitment efforts met mixed success at best, –"

"I don't understand. What's the big secret?"

"There was no grand plan, Scott. No sinister motive, no divine hand of inspiration guiding my choices. The entire venture was, as you said, an experiment. You see?" He leaned close and almost whispered. "I was making it up as I went along. Just like you do."

"Just like I do?" Scott asked, his voice sounding hollow in his own ears.

"Just like all of us," the Professor answered. "Now." Resuming his businesslike tone, he moved back toward the desk. "Ultimately, a leader is a leader because people consent to follow him. Speaking of which, there are a number of mutants depending on your leadership at this very moment. As I fear I am physically too far away to help them out myself, the duty falls – as it should – to you. You know what you need to do, of course."

The idea flashed in his mind, and he stared, "That's a little corny, Professor. Even for me."

"Please, Scott. Indulge an old man."

"Well, then –" Scott nodded at the Professor, closed his eyes, and intoned, in Xavier's style from days of old, "To me, my X-men."

The first voice was Logan's. "Oh, Christ. If you start getting delusions of Xavier, I'm off this team like a rocket."

"It would be you, wouldn't it." Scott opened his eyes, and Logan dived under the kitchen table.

"Christ, Summers! Somebody get him his fucking glasses!"

"It's all right," said Scott, touching his eyes by instinct. "At least I think it's all right –"

Logan got to his feet, flexing like maybe he had been hiding for the exercise. "I got it. Astral plane thing –"

"I don't think so -- " Scott started to explain, but he was disconcerted by Logan standing so close, staring critically . Scott once again wondered what he must look like.

"I thought your eyes would be blue," said Logan.

"Why were you thinking about my eyes?"

"He wasn't. He just likes blue." Scott turned to see Hank, closing the refrigerator. "Logan and I were about to have a beer. Join us?"

Scott frowned. "Hell breaking loose at the mansion, and you decide to have a drink?"

"Funny story," said Hank, sliding a bottle across the table at Logan.

"Hilarious," pronounced Peter, walking through the door. "With an 'H' for Hellfire. May I have a drink quickly, Henry? I am only unconscious. I should shortly recover."

"Only unconscious?" Scott repeated, thinking, _Isn't this supposed to be my coma?_ "What about --?"

Hank raised his bottle. "I'm stranded here until further notice. Or, to be precise, my higher consciousness is trapped, with the rest of you, in an existentially indeterminate state." He shook his head. "I'm afraid the beast may be running around doing untold damage."

"Oh, God." Scott looked at Logan. "You too?"

"Something like that," Logan mumbled. "Hey, do you want a beer or not?"

He reached out, instinctively, to take it, then let go. "No. Thanks, Logan but no thanks. I think I have somewhere to be. Now as for the four of you --." He turned to Peter and frowned. "Hey," he said, "Where's Kitty?"

END


End file.
